


The Defender of the North

by unintelligiblescreaming



Series: The World Saves Itself [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 1: Water (Avatar), For Want of a Nail, Gen, Not Shippy, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25718497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unintelligiblescreaming/pseuds/unintelligiblescreaming
Summary: Aang is never discovered in the iceberg. Katara and Sokka travel to the North Pole anyway.
Relationships: Katara & Sokka (Avatar)
Series: The World Saves Itself [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865455
Comments: 12
Kudos: 48





	The Defender of the North

“Where are you going?” Sokka asks. 

Katara straightens up, hair flying, eyebrows set in a defiant line. “Nowhere,” she says. It’s the most transparent lie Sokka’s ever heard. 

“Right,” he drawls. “Let me guess: you’re packing up your bedroll, your spare parka, and enough food to last a week because you’re going on a nice long vacation trip to… the other side of the village?”

“I’m just… I wasn’t going to go anywhere. I was just thinking about it.”

“This doesn’t looking like ‘thinking about it.’ This looks like ‘one step away from writing a mysterious goodbye note and vanishing in the middle of the night.’” 

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“You wouldn’t?” He’s trying to keep his tone flippant. He’s trying not to yell. He’s failing. “I heard you yesterday—you keep asking Gran-Gran about the North Pole, about how long the journey is, about—you’re—Katara, you can’t just _leave.”_

“Sokka—”

“Do you know how Gran-Gran would feel if you left her all alone? If you left me alone? Mom’s gone, Dad left, now _you?”_

“They’re going to come back one day,” Katara says.

“Yeah, if Dad doesn’t die first, but that doesn’t mean—”

“No. Not Dad. The Fire Nation. They’re going to come back. They’re going to win the war and one day they’re going to decide they’re not satisfied with taking away our benders and they’ll come back here and get rid of the rest of us. They wiped out the Air Nomads just because one of them _might_ be the Avatar. Water is next in the cycle after air; how long do you think it’ll take them to connect the dots?”

“That’s just another reason you need to stay,” says Sokka. He feels like he’s dying. That’s the only way he can describe the awful, empty feeling that’s twisting in his stomach and his chest.

“I’m going to the North to learn waterbending,” Katara says. “Maybe not tonight or tomorrow or the day after, but I’m going to go someday. Then I’ll come back, and when I do, I’ll be able to protect all of us.”

Sokka’s next words are nothing but instinct. They come from his gut, straight past that hollow feeling, straight past his anger and betrayal. “I’m coming with you.”

#

It’s a long, long way to the other side of the world. Sokka and Katara take a tiny canoe that just barely fits them and their supplies. It gets faster once Katara figures out how to propel the boat with bending, although she capsizes them several times before she gets the hang of it. She’s still woefully unskilled, but she learns to be fast and to keep up her stamina. And to ignore Sokka’s sulky muttering about “dumb magic water.”

They visit Kyoshi Island and almost get eaten by a giant sea monster. They’re saved by the people of the island, who are suspicious but willing to take them in for a few nights as they get their bearings. They don’t intend to stay as long as they do, but Sokka is fond of the scary girl who runs the Kyoshi warriors, so they linger longer than they might otherwise. Sokka gets his first opportunity to spar against a real opponent—and his first kiss. Katara rolls her eyes at him and practices wavering, hesitant waterbending forms at the shoreline until they’re neither wavering nor hesitant, although she knows it’s a far cry from the legendary feats of bending in the stories of the olden days of her home.

They stay a week. They might’ve stayed longer, but then a metal warship appears on the horizon. Katara, practicing on the beach, is the first to spot it. For an instant she’s paralyzed, remembering the ash that poisoned the snow on the day her mother died. Then she shakes herself from the memory and sprints to warn the villagers.

“Maybe the sea monster thing will eat them,” Sokka says hopefully.

The sea monster is not so obliging. The warship docks. Katara and Sokka stay out of sight, knowing what happens to Water Tribe kids when the Fire Nation is around, especially Water Tribe kids who can waterbend. They hear the news from the whispered gossip that spreads through the townsfolk. The warship belongs to a guy named Zhao; he’s here to demand that the island provide his with supplies for his journey to the North. The villagers have protested that they don’t have those kinds of resources. They can’t provide him with supplies without risking starvation this year. Zhao seems to view this as a plus, if anything, and has made the consequences for defiance clear. The buildings on Kyoshi Island are so very _flammable_ , after all.

Sokka and Katara should really stay out of the way and let the people of Kyoshi handle this. They should thank the villagers for their hospitality and leave before things get ugly. Unfortunately, they’ve never been good at running away from danger.

They go to the Kyoshi Warriors, who are obviously preparing for battle. “This isn’t your business,” says Suki.

“They attacked our home too,” says Sokka. “We couldn’t fight back then. We can fight back now.”

Suki looks like she doubts that statement, but she sighs and says, “Fine. We need all the people we can get. There’s just too many of them.”

It’s Sokka who comes up with the plan. It occurs to him as he peers through a shuttered window at Zhao marching through the streets, menacing people with fireballs when they don’t get out of his way fast enough. “I was thinking,” he says slowly to Katara and Suki. “There are a lot of flammable things on Fire Nation ships, like coal and tar, but it’s not really a problem for them because they’re not aiming at their own ships and their enemies can’t bend fire. He gets angry really fast, doesn’t he? And when he gets angry he starts shooting fire everywhere.”

“No matter how angry we get him, I’m not sure we can make him accidentally set his own ship on fire,” says Katara doubtfully. “We’d have to be on the ship in the first place.”

“And we’d have to be absolutely sure about what he’s going to do,” Suki points out. “Even if we, I don’t know, infiltrate his crew and be incompetent enough to piss him off, we’d have to be one hundred percent confident that he’s not going to hold his temper just long enough to manhandle us off the deck before setting us on fire.”

“Well, I can’t get you a one hundred percent chance, but I bet I can get pretty close,” says Sokka. “I’ve got an idea.”

#

Step one of the plan is Sokka jumping onto Zhao’s deck, pulling out his boomerang, and shouting, “Hey, over here!”

Step two of the plan is to not immediately die. The Kyoshi Warriors stay hidden and attack from a distance, drawing the soldiers’ fire. Zhao barks orders at his men to flush them out of their hiding spots, but all the while Sokka taunts him with the most annoying monikers he can think of. Many of them have to do with Zhao’s sideburns. 

Zhao growls and tosses a fireball at his feet. Sokka yelps and dives to the side. As he’s scrambling upright, Zhao takes aim again. This time a jet of fire narrowly misses his face. He might not have missed, but just as he finished the form, a small wave leapt over the side of the deck and crashed into his arm, sending him very slightly off course. He turns to face Katara, who is swinging up onto the deck, doubling up on Sokka’s taunting.

Everything happens speedily after that. Sokka and Katara aren’t good fighters—not yet—but they do know how to be annoying and, being siblings, they’re especially good at it together. “Children,” Zhao sneers, firing larger and larger bursts of flame. “Don’t even know how to stand and fight yet.”

When the siblings suddenly dive over the side and frantically dart towards land, up the beach, and further inland, he sends fire scorching at their backs but doesn’t worry overmuch when none of them connect. He and his crew will round them up along with any other dissident elements in the village.

Somehow, he’s shocked when he turns around and realizes he’s accidentally set his own ship on fire.

#

Suki gives Sokka a kiss and a better boat. He and Katara leave at dawn.

They make port in a seaside town that doesn’t seem to hold any particular allegiance to any faction. The two of them wander into an odd little shop that seems to also be a boat. The staff strikes Sokka as a little… off, and there’s this parrotlemur that he could swear is eyeing him with evil intent. He narrows his eyes right back at it. “I’m watching you,” he whispers. It caws at him insolently.

“Sokka, look,” says Katara. She takes a scroll from a shelf and unfurls it, showing him. “It’s a waterbending scroll.”

He glances at the illustrations. “Huh. I don’t think I’ve seen you do that thingy before.”

“I know, right? This could be so useful!”

“How much does it cost? Because we’ve only got so much left over after getting food.”

“I’ll ask.” Katara strides over to the shop owner and waits for another customer to finish talking to the owner.

The other customer is an older man who is genially haggling with the storekeeper over the price of a weird-looking obsidian statue with gemstones for eyes. He’s accompanied by a teenage boy with a terrible haircut who stands to the side with arms crossed, looking insufferably bored. “Uncle,” he says. “We’ve been here for _hours.”_

“And look how much fun we’re having!”

_“Fun?”_

“Well, you would be having fun if you’d let yourself relax for once. This town is so lively and unique. How many people have the opportunity to visit a place like this?”

“Opportunity? More like _curse.”_

The uncle looks like he’s about to respond with a gentle admonishment, but the shopkeeper interrupts. “Sixty-five and that’s my final offer.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” the uncle says, “but I can live with that.”

He pays and leaves with his purchase. “Finally,” grumbles his nephew as he follows. 

The shopkeeper turns to Katara. “You wanna buy that?”

“How much is it?” 

He tells her.

“O-oh,” she stutters. “That’s, um. I think. I think I’ll just browse a bit more, if that’s okay.”

She steps away from the counter and returns to the shelf where she first found it. Sokka is examining some interesting sharp objects and isn’t keeping track of what she’s doing, so he’s puzzled when she tugs at his arm and whispers, “Let’s go.”

“What—”

“No! Shh! Let’s go. Act casual.”

With forced calm, they leave the establishment. Once they’re thirty feet away, Sokka whispers, “What was that about?”

Katara looks guilty. “I may or may not have skipped a few steps while buying something.”

“But you didn’t buy anything.”

“Well… I didn’t _pay_ for anything.”

There’s a crash and the sound of running feet. “Hey!” shouts the shopkeeper. “Get back here!”

Katara and Sokka run.

#

Days later, the two siblings are trudging under the fierce noon sun. Their boat is tied up in a secluded cove on the coast; they’re traveling inland in search of a town where they could get something to eat and maybe stay the night. They would have kept sailing along the coast, but they’d seen a Fire Nation ship on the horizon and thought it better not to risk it. 

They’ve been walking for hours. Life in the South Pole was never this sweaty. Sokka’s not a fan. He wishes Katara’s stolen scroll had any useful tips on how to sweat-bend, but apparently whoever made it hadn’t thought that was an important beginner’s skill. At least the North Pole will be nice and cool.

Then he has a _thought._ It’s not a nice thought.

“Zhao,” says Sokka. “I just realized—we heard him say he and his crew was going to meet up with his fleet and then go to the North.”

“So? There are a lot of things that are north of Kyoshi Island.”

“He didn’t say he was going north, he said he was going to _the_ North. As in the North Pole.”

Katara frowns. “I doubt it. The Northern Water Tribe’s naval defenses are strong; the Fire Nation navy hasn’t dared get close in decades.”

“That’s what he said, though. What if they’re planning to invade?”

He can tell she doesn’t like that thought any more than he does. As if to convince herself, she says, “Even the best Fire Nation ship is going to have trouble in a fight against a team of trained waterbenders on their home territory.”

“Not if they take them by surprise,” says Sokka grimly. “I’m just saying, we might want to pick up our pace if you want to learn waterbending from a Northern teacher before they all get kidnapped by the Fire Nation.”

#

It takes them weeks upon weeks to trudge their way across the Earth Kingdom. They see the scars the war leaves on the forests and fields of the continent and in the privacy of their minds, they compare it to the scars the war left on their childhood and their home, wondering what it even means to compare one to the other. 

On their journey, they encounter the Foggy Swamp. In it, they get separated. 

Wading through the murky water, wandering among the roots of the banyan tree, Katara hears a boy’s laughter in the distance, carefree and bright. She’s half-mad with anxiety, terrified she and her brother won’t be able to find each other again, and she latches on to the sound of another human voice like a life raft. She runs after the laughter. 

She rounds a thick tangle of roots and sees the boy, far away, up high, leaping from one tall branch to another. She’s so startled to see him cross a distance of forty feet as if it’s nothing that she trips over a log and falls face-first in the mud. By the time she drags herself out, the boy is out of sight, but his laughter echoes in the distance. She follows. She doesn’t catch up to him, but following the laughter leads her straight to Sokka—and to the heart of the swamp.

She and Sokka meet the swamp benders. When they’re preparing to leave and continue their journey, she tells Sokka about her vision of the boy. “He was wearing strange clothes,” she says. “Yellow and orange. And he was carrying a wooden staff. I think he was a spirit—he could _fly.”_

#

They reach the North Pole. Pakku refuses to teach Katara and she duels him in a fit of rage, and then he sees her necklace and finally agrees to teach her. Sokka spends his days in the company of Princess Yue. Katara teases him about this endlessly, at least until they realize Yue is engaged, at which point it becomes much less funny. 

The Fire Nation attacks. Yue is the first to feel it when Zhao kills the moon spirit.   
Sokka is assigned to guard her, and Katara stays by his side, so both of them follow after the princess when she rushes to the spirit oasis.

They find spirit of the moon lying in the still water, dead.

 _We were too late,_ Katara realizes. Her healing is worse less than nothing here. She sits there, with Yue on one side and Sokka on the other, half-immersed in the water, holding the dead fish-shaped shell of the spirit to which she owes everything she’s ever loved. She cries.

Her sobs shake her so fiercely that she doesn’t notice the water beginning to glow, nor does she notice when the glow makes its way towards her hands and up her arms. She doesn’t notice the glow caress her shoulders like a mantle. She only realizes that something is happening when the glow follows the lines of her salt-filled tears and bleeds into her eyes.

The spirit of the ocean floods her soul.

The spirit holds her, fierce and gentle, as it draws the icy waters in and grows to an impossible height. She breathes with it, in and out, and saltwater rushes into her lungs. It doesn’t hurt. The tides have always been at home in her veins.

Katara—the spirit—walks forward.

The warriors of the North see her and drop to their knees. They don’t fear that the soldiers they’re fighting will seize the moment to strike them down. They know what will happen. The soldiers of the Fire Nation try to fight the vengeful ocean incarnate, but she washes them away with a single sweep of her arm. It’s not like bending. You can’t bend what you _are._ She looks up at the hollow, bloodstained moon—at her first love, at her other half—and she sinks the enemy fleet.

#

When it’s over, when the ocean releases her, she’s left sprawled out on the ice, trembling. Time passes; she’s not sure how much. At some point, Sokka finds her and stays beside her as she reclaims her grip on the ordinary world. She sits up and tries to ask him why he looks so sad, but seawater pours out of her mouth instead of words. From that night forward, she will breathe water as easily as air. 

Eventually, Sokka tells her about Yue: that she gave her life back to the moon. “I’m sorry,” Katara says. And then the part of her that still sings with ocean-roar moves her tongue against her will: “I loved her too.”

#

Once the wounded are tended to and the bodies are taken care of, the North holds a feast in honor of the victory—and in honor of the dead. They toast to Yue’s name, which Katara expects, and then they toast to _Katara_ , which she doesn’t expect at all. “To the Defender of the North,” the Chief calls, his voice ringing out across the hall. Everyone returns the cry: _to the Defender of the North._


End file.
